Years and years ago my sister and I would take turns playing Guildwars. She would do the quests, and on my turns I'd just "go 'splorin,'" also known as mindlessly filling the map. She hated me for it.

Apparently my Skyrim playing is even worse. My character is not Dovahkiin because I've never completed a single scrap of the main quest. I have a $9k bounty on my head, a stolen horse named "Hey-Get-The-Fuck-Back-Here" and lots and lots of gold. I think I've been across most of the map, too. Markarth's still my favorite city. Too bad I'm not allowed back...

Me and a friend just started Saints Row 3 together and almost instantly we were told to create our own character. About an hour and a half later we were finally done and then after running around purely to see our newly made character in action, we just called it quits for the night. When I first started Skyrim the anxiety of creating my character kept me from playing that game properly for days.

When I started SR3 with a friend it was kind of different, he just went with the defauLt gut and I spent ages making an AWESOME character. Then when I was finally finished, I insisted on going around and getting my perfect outfit. I looked FABULOUS.

I think by saying "my girlfriend," instead of "women," people assume they're avoiding the perception that they're being sexist ("I'm only talking about this one person! Who I like or maybe love! It can't be sexist!). Despite that, I'm still reminded of this: XKCD Math

Your examples are of stereotypes that perpetuate common sexist and racist ideas. Both the comic and the OP touch on very pervasive stereotypes that are very sexist at their core - "women suck at games" and "women are bad at math."

And then there's the corollary that divides the pie chart into two distinct sections that don't overlap, "Time spent with her enjoying the game" and "Time spent trying to get her to hurry up and do what I want."

My boyfriend doesn't want to play video games with me for reasons similar to these. :-( It's not that I don't try, I'm just not very good, and I don't have the platforms/games so I can get better on my own time. I wish I was any good. Now, excuse me while I go play Professor Layton...

^
I am perfectly fine with most PC controls, and have been playing for a while. I'm not the best at FPS's, but I'm certainly not horrible. My cousin invites me to play an FPS on his 360 on thanksgiving? Sure why not? I was fucking terrible. I couldn't control it for the life of me, despite having played tons of games with them as a kid on their xbox and ps2.

He has probably tried getting you to play games that are too complicated for beginners. FPS's or any game in a first person view is going to be really hard for someone inexperienced to play. He's probably been playing for years and takes for granted how difficult it can be. Once you've been playing for a while you almost forget that the controller is there, until you make a mistake and hit the wrong thing.

If you have a decent PC and a little money, you can head over to the Steam sale and get a few cheap games to play. Depending on what you are getting, you could get four or five for $10, if you know what you are doing.

You basically hit the problem on the head right there. I'm just trying to figure out how to navigate (this seems to be a recurring problem for me, like in Skyrim and WoW) and interact, while it seems like he can just pick up any game and figure out what to do... also, I think FPS stands for Frames Per Second instead of whatever it stands for in gaming... ;__;

And prepare to hate me, but all I have to my name is a hand-me-down Macbook. Which, from what I understand, can be to my disadvantage, as a lot of games aren't available for Apple. I did see the Steam sale, though! I'm contemplating whether or not I should buy some things.

First Person Shooter. Skyrim isn't really an FPS, but it does have the same prospective and most of the same mechanics as one. There are also TPSs (Third Person Shooters) such as Mass Effect and Gears of War.

Yeah, Macbooks are great for gaming. A laptop can be pretty decent, but not an older Macbook. And yeah, a lot of games aren't gonna be playable. But there are many that are. Minecraft is one of them.

I'm pretty sure today is the last day of the Steam sale, so if you want anything you should probably get on that. I believe they have a separate section of Mac-friendly games.

I figured as much. I'm on my second re-read right now. Hopefully I get caught up about the same time he starts updating again.

I'm a perfectionist, I like to play the same thing over and over until I do it perfectly or get a high score or whatever, my partner likes to charge through an area at top speed, no stops, just get to the other side. Pisses me the fuck off.

I'm not a female gamer, but that was pretty close to how I normally play, if you reverse the green part and the blue part. Unless it's Skyrim, then it would be 80% looking for mods and editing ini files.

Exactly! It's so hard. I understand that if you spend 2-3 hours or more a day playing FP games it's easy because you're practiced, but it makes me dizzy sometimes because the camera keeps swerving and moving and suddenly I'm walking sideways.

This made me laugh. I'm not laughing at you; not what I meant! I'm also a female, btw. I just mean that I never really think about the fact that it could be difficult for people to figure out the controls. I think I'm just lucky, that moving and whatnot came second nature to me when I switched from console to PC, even with FPS and stuff. I don't remember having an issue with it when I started on console, but that's mainly what I'm laughing at. I'm sure I did when I first started, but it's been so long that I've forgotten.. so I don't understand how new players can't get the controls down.

As a person who has been playing console since they were ~5, and PC for a few years (but only more seriously within the last 6 months or so), it can be really frustrating to watch someone else play. You end up thinking, "WHY CAN'T YOU EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO CONTROL THE CHARACTER?!" just because you don't remember the trouble you had when you started, and you can immediately pick up most new games with almost no trouble. It's like, there's just this desire to take away the controller/keyboard and show them how to do it. I can't explain why, and I never say anything or actually attempt to take it from them. The only time I do say something is if they ask for help, but then I'll just try to tell them what to do instead of doing it for them.

Your ex sounds totally butthurt! I always had the same problem with my brother when I was a kid because I would pummel the shit out of him in certain games. Oddly enough, he never wanted to play those...

Good thing my girlfriend's a gamer. Whenever I play GTA IV around her she starts to criticize how much I suck and then takes the remote and does 50x better than me ._. she even beat Twilight Princess faster than I did.

Exactly, the first time my boyfriend played Skyrim I wanted to take the controller away and play it myself... he kept just wandering around, and spent for fricking ever making a face. He won't play with me in the house anymore, which makes us both happy.

haha! the first (and only) time my boyfriend played Skyrim, he literally spent 45 minutes customizing his character and about 4 minutes trying to figure out how to move before giving up and telling me "this is too complicated for me. I can't play this." and I said "aww... okay" while I did a happy dance in my brain because it was the most frustrating (almost) hour ever.

Sure, I know I spent the first couple minutes picking up EVERYTHING, because I could. But it took him well over an hour just to get to the main game. More frustrating to watch someone else doing it then to do it yourself.

After you've done the main storyline and about every other storyline, you just get kinda tired of mission after mission and DO wander around. I, sadly, burnt my character and did about everything at once. Since wandering, thou, I have found new quests to do an with mods, more stuff to kill. :) wandering is a good thing!

The fact that it refers specifically to his girlfriend and not just his friend does emphasize the gender of the subject though, which invites others to relate to it by thinking that it is something that can be attributed to girls in general.

Also, you're putting words in lolpancakeslol's mouth, actually. They aren't accusing the OP of doing this on purpose, and they could just be reminding us that this isn't exclusive to women, because looking at the image frankly, the butt of the joke is women.

There's always the one asshole who feels the need to clarify that a post isn't particular to just one type of person. We get it you're not racist/sexist/etc. Here's a cookie for making sure no one might accidentally be sexist. (I baked it and I'm a man. Not all men bake though)

Even when the post is specifically a joke about women, specifically a dumb joke that's the same as "lol shoes and hair" or whatever with a coat of gamer varnish on it. "It didn't say ONLY women so it can't be sexist weeee logic"

Except stereotypes exist for a reason. Most black people really do love fried chicken. Most guys with long hair do smoke weed. And most girls fucking suck at videogames. Its just the truth. Get over it.

I think my girlfriend and I have a rather nice setup going. I dabble a bit in some of her interests, she dabbles a bit in mine. If I don't like something, I don't like it. I don't do it anymore. Likewise for her. We're each all for giving something a fair chance. For me it is lots of cool music I never listened to and movies I traditionally would never have chosen to watch alone. For her she plays video games and I recently taught her (or at least am still teaching) to play Magic the Gathering with some of my old cards.

The idea is that we both can enjoy things with each other without having to be carbon copies of each other, but have enough different to do our own thing.

It's fine if he tries to get her to like what he likes, but it's an asshole move to get mad if she does it her own way and not the way he likes. It defeats the purpose if you give her a game to try and then get frustrated at her slow pace. Gamers forget what it was like as a beginner and don't understand why non-players struggle with things that seem simple, like moving and looking around at the same time. I'm not saying OP does this, but it's a likely possibility...I've seen it happen pretty often.

Girl here. I started playing games because my boyfriend seemed really happy that I was trying stuff he likes. We started with Team Fortress 2 a few months ago and until now I don't know how to move. My boyfriend says I'm doing fine but I know he complains about me being an dumb female to his gamer friends (saw a steam conversation) much like this post. We moved on to Diablo and I have no problems with it. Now farming inferno while they're still in normal mode

HEY. There is nothing wrong with spending the time to make a perfect character! My boyfriend usually asks me to make his characters for him because he knows I love doing it and they always come out awesome. ;D

That's not even the worst of it. I finally convinced my girlfriend to play a game, and the game she chose was Fallout NV. I'm not sure what was more painful; the difficulty she had moving both thumbsticks at the same time or the fact that she literally opened fire on the first NPC she found, and ended up murdering Goodsprings in the first five minutes of gameplay.

Experienced gamers constantly take for granted that we can navigating a 3D environment with a controller/mouse+kb with out thinking about it. For someone new to gaming, it'll take many hours to develop this skill.

Eyup. We've been doing this sort of thing for years, quite a few of us have been playing since before there were even controllers with two joysticks. It's exceedingly easy for us to just jump in without thinking about it and just needing to figure out a few buttons before we are good to go.

Basically, any 3D FPS is going to be really hard for a non-gamer to play right off the bat. If you want to get someone in on gaming, you have to start with something with a simpler control scheme. Twin-stick shooters are pretty good for getting someone used to using two sticks at once. Older platformers (or certain newer ones such as Rayman Origins, which I highly recommmend) will get them comfortable using a controller. Or keyboard, I guess. I learned how to game on console so that's what I default to. PS1/N64 era 3D games, or similar modern games, can be used to ease them into 3D gaming before going into the dual-stick controls of FPS's.

I've heard from a few people that have tried to introduce their girlfriends to Portal that the controls (looking and moving at the same time) can be frustrating. However, since there's usually no immediate threats running at you all the time, and this is probably one of the more simple instances of moving and looking around, it might be ok. However, there are a lot of puzzles that require quick movements, so she probably will get frustrated in the later levels...I did, and I've been playing games for a long time.

If you play co-op with her on portal 2 and don't get frustrated as she tries to figure out the concept of portals, as well as how to move around in the 3D world it should be fine.

When I was first introduced to gaming I kept getting frustrated at myself because I knew how to solve puzzles, or what I had to do, but my brain wasn't used to the controls, so I kept having a horrible time trying to get my thoughts to become my actions in the game.

Just be patient with her, and don't solve everything for her. Let her learn.

I had trouble with the controls in Portal for awhile (had to make the gamer friend who was playing it with me do all the bits that required jumping, embarrassing) but once we beat it and moved on to Portal 2 it wasn't an issue anymore. I'm not a non-gamer, though - just not used to Xbox controls.

I think you'll be fine as long as you don't mind watching her kill Chell a lot and she isn't the type to get easily frustrated and ragequit.

That's the funny thing, though; everyone was new to gaming at some point. I know the first time I used dual analog inputs I was certainly not confused. It is intuitive. M+KB is even more intuitive.

My personal progression of consoles was NES -> Genesis -> PlayStation -> PS2+Xbox -> PS3, with PC sprinkled about and now takes priority. At some point (PlayStation) I made a jump from no analog to dual analog and that jump was not difficult. I never played an FPS till the PS2, and I had no trouble.

I've tried Assassins creed 2 and Mass Effect 3, and both times my husband just sat there shaking his head in disbelief the whole time.

I get so frustrated trying to use both thumbsticks, it really just makes me hate even trying. I really do want to play those games...they look like so much fun. But I can't get past the two thumbsticks thing.

I would try playing without him watching. Although I consider myself a gamer and have played games for a long time, I still suck at FPS games since I rarely play them, so certain games that I try to get into still frustrate my husband to watch. It's completely discouraging for both parties, because my husband wants to be encouraging, but can't hide his disappointment or frustration watching me play. So now he's not allowed to watch, haha.

Take it slow. Don't worry about "mastering" Assassin's Creed 2 or Mass Effect 3. Play what you can, enjoy it, and even if you bumble your way through it, you're still learning! Before you know it, you'll be playing games with your husband in no time...it just might take a while, just like it took him a while to learn all those years ago.

That sounds like my experience with Fallout 3. I was just trying to save Butch's Mom and I accidentally hit her. So she got mad and I had to kill her. Then Butch got mad and started chasing me so I had to kill him too. It was all downhill from there.

Speaking as a lady who learned about gaming from a bf, the trick to reducing that size of the "learning how to move" wedge? (1) Consider a game with third-person perspective, knowing how they work makes first-person easier later on. (2) Play the same game a couple days in a row.

I tried teaching my girlfriend how to play portal 2 (granted a difficult game for a non-gamer to wrap their head around). Most of the time was spent practicing using WASD to move while using your pointer finger to press E. It was frustrating. And as a side-note this is something that would also be difficult for any non-gamer, not just girls. Just though I'd share haha.

Here, I'll put some words in the poster's mouth: "Hi, I'm an insensitive jerk who likes to play dumb female stereotypes for laughs."

It's not just about his girlfriend, because why would anyone care how some random girlfriend plays games? No, it's the same old sexist generalization that echoes through the steaming bowels of the internet like a resounding fart. And it smells like one, too.

There's a time and a place for sexism arguments. This is not one of those. Try again next time.

edit: and by that I mean when things are actually sexist. Calling someone insensitive and sexist for making an observation of a person (op's girlfriend, not a broad generalization, though relatable) who takes an interest in the different (almost unintended) aspects of gaming is just... frustrating and depressing.

It's a broad generalization for sure. "My girlfriend has like 200 pairs of shoes, what's up with that!" The punchline is "hahaha women shoes." "My girlfriend spends a hundred hours on character customization" is the same thing as "women shoes lol," it's just got a coat of gaming paint on it. It's the same joke though and it's equally tired and stupid.

This seriously makes you mad? Some guy saying what his girlfriend does when playing. Fuck you if you think it's sexist. He has access to the information and experience in this post to say what his girlfriend does. This is what she does. It's not what all girls do. But it's what she does. FUCK YOU

My girlfriend is really good at games. I've seen her beat at least seven games. And I'm only ahead of her in Red Dead Redemption because I started before her. FYI I buy games after they've been out for awhile to save money. The only new game I bought for me PS3 when it came out was Battlefield 3.

Dude that shit is important for cutscenes and shit , I made the cheekbones way too pointy on my mass effect character and only noticed in the cutcscenes. Annoyed the fuck out of me for the entire game because my character looked ridiculous

Yeah, I played Runescape back in the day and I couldn't see the jaw I was choosing on the customization screen because it was full-body and the jaw was too small to see. I dreaded cutscenes after that, because my poor female character looked like a mentally-challenged troll when she spoke.

I freaking hate FP perspective. I've played Video Games for most of my life, but I am never very good at shooters or first person. Especially on consoles. Probably partially due to the fact that all the FP games I own are on PC now, and I didn't even have access to a console until about 6 years ago. (in my mid 20s).

Even in PC when mouse sensitivity is too high, I get dizzy and eyestrain. Too much movement of screen. Urgh.

Me, my husband, and his brother have been playing a game of Civ...it takes me less than 5 minutes to do a turn, it takes them probably over 10. I get so bored that I started playing my gameboy while I wait for them.

My sister was at home for a few weeks and I had to go somewhere for a few hours. I let her play skyrim on my computer while I was gone. When I got back I checked in on her, she was still messing with the face of her character. Apparently she spent an hour choosing the race.

My only human gaming opponent growing up was my mentally disabled sister. Goldeneye against a mongoloid, can you imagine that feel? So whenever I played anything against a normal person, I got destroyed. That's true tragedy, my friend--I'm talking suicide deep, for serious. (Violin outro)

Thank God my girlfriend is competent and plays League with me, finished Trine 2 with me, finished Portal 2 co-op with me, and played the current GW2 PBE with me all at a pace that pretty much matched mine if not exceeded (when I got lazy).